A few days ago we told you that an American government agency decided that HTC violated 2 patents of the Apple company in its own Android terminals launched on the market. Then the speculations started suggesting that HTC will have to pay very large sums of money to Apple or that HTC will use the invention patents of the S3 company (recently acquired) to collaborate with Apple, etc. This victory of Apple takes determined on some Chinese mobile phone manufacturers to partially abandon Android and move to the Windows Phone 7 platform.
Manufacturers such as ZTE or Huawei, which recently entered the mobile phone market and have had quite a lot of success, are thinking of not implementing Android in certain mobile phone models and using Windows Phone 7 instead. Another strategy of the Chinese manufacturers is to force the mobile phone operators to install modified versions of Android on the terminals and in case of a lawsuit filed by Apple, the operator will be called to court and not the terminal manufacturer.
I for one do not think that the problems between Apple and HTC will reach the stage where the two companies will wage a war in the courts, but the effects on the Chinese market should give those at HTC something to think about.
